Plastic Theatre

Plastic Theatre

“To express his universal truths Williams created what he termed plastic theatre, a distinctive new style of drama. He insisted that setting, properties, music, sound, and visual effects - all the elements of staging—must combine to reflect and enhance the action, theme, characters, and language.” (Alice Griffin: Understanding Tennessee Williams. Columbia: University of South Carolina , 1995.

The scholarship that has focused on Williams' plastic theatre principally examines its practical implications. Roger Boxill states, for instance, "The 'new plastic theatre' must make full use of all the resources of the contemporary stage—language, action, scenery, music, costume, sound, lighting—and bind them into an artistic unity conceived by the playwright.” (Boxill, Roger. Tennessee Williams. Modern Dramatists Series)

The purpose of this 'plastic theatre,' of which lighting, music, set, and props are essential elements, is to provide 'a more penetrating and vivid expression of things as they are.

Read more at http://www.tennesseewilliamsstudies.org/archives/2002/3kramer.htm